HEY MISS LETTY, LET'S RECITATE

Oh! *turns red* I was thinking of the poet, not Our Francis. lol Sorry Francis.

Oh yes, I have a book called Poetry Speaks by Paschen/Mosby, and it has cd's of many poets reading their poems. Carl Sandburg reads Grass, Cool Tombs, and 107 from The People, Yes.

One I learned as a young boy that has stayed with me ever since.

Alladin" by James Russell Lowell.

"When I was a beggarly boy,
And lived in a cellar damp,
I had not a friend nor a toy,
But I had Alladin's lamp;

When I could not sleep for the cold,
I had fire enough in my brain,
And builded, with roofs of gold,
My beautiful castles in Spain.

"Since then I have toiled day and night,
I have money and power, good store,
But I'd give all my lamps of silver bright
For the one that is mine no more;

Take, Fortune, whatever you choose;
You gave, and may snatch again:
I have nothing 't would pain me to lose,
For I own no more castles in Spain!

ah, yes, georgeob1. and from the Vision of Sir Launfal by J.R.L.

Prelude to Part First

Over his keys the musing organist,
Beginning doubtfully and far away,
First lets his fingers wander as they list,
And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his lay:
Then, as the touch of his loved instrument
Gives hopes and fervor, nearer draws his theme,
First guessed by faint auroral flushes sent
Along the wavering vista of his dream.

Not only around our infancy
Doth heaven with all its splendors lie;
Daily, with souls that cringe and plot,
We Sinais climb and know it not;
Over our manhood bend the skies;
Against our fallen and traitor lives
The great winds utter prophecies;
With our faint hearts the mountain strives;
Its arms outstretched, the druid wood
Waits with its benedicite;
And to our age's drowsy blood
Still shouts the inspiring sea.

Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us;
The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in,
The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us,
We bargain for the graves we lie in;
At the Devil's booth are all things sold
Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold;
For a cap and bells our lives we pay,
Bubbles we earn with a whole soul's tasking:
'T is heaven alone that is given away,
'T is only God may be had for the asking;
There is no price set on the lavish summer,
And June may be had by the poorest comer.

And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays:
Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;
Every clod feels a stir of might,
An instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And, grasping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;
The flush of life may well be seen
Thrilling back over hills and valleys;
The cowslip startles in meadows green,
The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,
And there 's never a leaf or a blade too mean
To be some happy creature's palace;
The little bird sits at his door in the sun,
Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,
And lets his illumined being o'errun
With the deluge of summer it receives;
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings;
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest,--
In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?

Thanks Letty. I hadn't read that in a long time. What, indeed, is so rare as a day in June !

Here in return is a little bauble -

Ernest Dowson.

THEY are not long, the weeping and the laughter,
Love and desire and hate:
I think they have no portion in us after
We pass the gate.

They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
Within a dream.

Lovely, ob1. Reminds me of a song. and I had no idea that such a beautiful bauble existed to inspire Johnny Mercer.

Lots of well known songs take their key lines and images from little known poetry. Here's another;

Frances Bordillion

The night has a thousand eyes
And the day but one,
Yet the light of the bright world dies
With the setting sun

The mind has a thousand eyes
And the heart but one
Yet the light of a whole life dies
When love is done

"I hate guys
Who criticise
Vigorous guys
Whose enterprise
Has helped them rise
Above the guys
Who criticise."

Sam Smith

Warden Utah State Prison.

It isn't clear whether Mr Smith wrote it but he had it tacked to the wall outside his office.

I like it because it shoves two fingers up the nose of most of the people I meet.It isn't very good poetry mind you from a technical point of view but that's not something I bother about.

and then george, some baubles should be left as poetry because the adaptation to music sucks. <smile> Trees is another.

spendius, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to write poetry and whoever wrote that composed it from need, I would think.

Richard Wright:

universality that transcends both race and color without ever denying them.

Wright wrote his haiku obsessively--in bed, in cafes, in restaurants, in both Paris and the French countryside. His daughter Julia believes, quite rightly, that her father's haiku were "self-developed antidotes against illness, and that breaking down words into syllables matched the shortness of his breath." They also offered the novelist and essayist a new form of expression and a new vision: with the threat of death constantly before him, he found inspiration, beauty, and insights in and through the haiku form. The discovery and writing of haiku also helped him come to terms with nature and the earth, which in his early years he had viewed as hostile and equated with suffering and physical hunger. Fighting illness and frequently bedridden, deeply upset by the recent loss of his mother, Ella, Wright continued, as his daughter notes, "to spin these poems of light out of the gathering darkness."



1

I am nobody:
A red sinking autumn sun
Took my name away.

3

Keep straight down this block,
Then turn right where you will find
A peach tree blooming.

7

Make up you mind, Snail!
You are half inside your house,
And halfway out!

11

You moths must leave now;
I am turning out the light
And going to sleep.

16

All right, You Sparrows;
The sun has set and you can now
Stop your chattering!

18

Sparrow's excrement
Becomes quickly powdery
On sizzling pavements.

20

The dog's violent sneeze
Fails to rouse a single fly
On his mangy back.

21

On winter mornings
The candle shows faint markings
Of the teeth of rats.

22

With a twitching nose
A dog reads a telegram
On a wet tree trunk.

24

The webs of spiders
Sticking to my sweaty face
In the dusty woods.

Nice stuff Letty,

I've always loved the way haiku forces you to squeeze pages worth of imagery into 17 syllables.
What is left out is just as important as what went in.

Spendius, I would hazard a guess that your poem was penned by an inmate.

LionTamer, the life of Richard Wright was as complicated as his brevity.

From rote:

William Cullen Bryant: the last of his Thanatopis and a very long an uninterrupted sentence

So live that when thy summons comes,
To join that innumerable caravan
which leads to that mysterious realm
Where each shall take his chamber
In the silent halls of death,
Thou go not like a quarry slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon,
But sustained and soothed by an unfaltering trust
Approach thy grave,
As one who wraps the drapery of his couch about him,
And lies down to pleasant dreams.

It has been observed, that Bryant may have written this last stanza much later in life.

E.A.Poe
Sonnet-To Science
E.A. Poe

Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,
Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,
Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,
Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?
And driven the Hamadryad from the wood
To seek a shelter in some happier star?
Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,
The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?


This poem was written in his youth.

I love poems about the sky, and the stars. Here is one of my favorites by Robert Frost.

Canis Mayor
Robert Frost

The great Overdog,
That heavenly beast
With a star in one eye,
Gives a leap in the east.

He dances upright
All the way to the west
And never once drops
On his forefeet to rest.

I'm a poor underdog,
But tonight I will bark
With the great Overdog
That romps through the dark.

Ah, Frost and Poe, Angel. Quite an interesting combination.

For some reason I awoke thinking of Bryon:



George Gordon, Lord Byron

The Destruction Of Sennacherib


The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.
Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen:
Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he pass'd,
And the eyes of the sleepers wax'd deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!
And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there roll'd not the breath of his pride;
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail:
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpets unblown.
And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

Traditional Irish children's recitation:

There was a man of double deed
Who sowed his garden full of seed
And when the seed began to grow
'Twas like a garden full of snow
And when the snow began to fall
'Twas like some birds upon a wall
And when the birds began to fly
'Twas like a shipwreck in the sky
And when the sky began to crack
'Twas like a stick across my back
And when my back began to bleed
Then i was dead and dead indeed

She walks in beauty
By Lord Byron

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet exxpress
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

Setanta, I loved that Irish verse, and it is deeper than a child can say.

Ah, Angel. I do wonder if there is a "he" that walks in beauty. <smile>

Rites of passage?





South of the bridge on Seventeenth
I found back of the willows one summer
day a motorcycle with engine running
as it lay on its side, ticking over
slowly in the high grass. I was fifteen.

I admired all that pulsing gleam, the
shiny flanks, the demure headlights
fringed where it lay; I led it gently
to the road, and stood with that
companion, ready and friendly. I was fifteen.

We could find the end of a road, meet
the sky on out Seventeenth. I thought about
hills, and patting the handle got back a
confident opinion. On the bridge we indulged
a forward feeling, a tremble. I was fifteen.

Thinking, back farther in the grass I found
the owner, just coming to, where he had flipped
over the rail. He had blood on his hand, was pale-
I helped him walk to his machine. He ran his hand
over it, called me good man, roared away.

I stood there, fifteen.

--William Stafford

Love, love Poetry, and Art
I started to collect poetry when I was very young. The reason was, I got tired of hearing some people refer to other people as savages, and I wanted to know why. I gave this some thought, and decided the best way to learn about the people of the world was through their images, and words (art, and poetry). I still don't know how in my child's mind I came up with this conclusion (I was so young), but, I know now. Images of what they live and see, and words from their heart, and soul.

I have poetry from all over the world, and all eras. My favorite poems are ancient poems, the older the better. I have them in categories, like for example: Dragon poems, Women's poems, Love, Political (or protest), and many, many more.

Last year, one of my family members gave me an old book for xmas. I love when someone gives me a gift on a subject I hold dear. These are the gifts I most treasure, more than the most expensive gift anyone can give me. The book was a book on Chinese poetry, first published in 1919. Its called "Translations from the Chinese) by Arthur Waley. It also has beautiful water color illustrations. It was hard to choose which to post, but here are the three I chose.

In the Preface Arthur Waley explains:

"There are one or two questions which readers of ancient Chinese poetry, translated into another language, are bound to ask. Is it really at all like our poetry? Does it scan, does it rhyme? The answer to these questions is that (compared, for example with Japanese poetry) Chinese traditional poetry is very similar to ours. Its lines have a fixed number of syllables, and rhyme is obligatory; so that old Chinese poetry strongly resembles traditional English verse, and is not at all like the free verse of Europe, and America today.

Modern Chinese poets have of course experimented in free verse; but the tendency is always to come back to rhyme and strict form."

With that said, here is the first poem.

By Ts'ao Chih (A.D. 192-232), third son of Ts'ao Ts'ao. He was a great favorite with his father till he made a mistake in a campaign.

A Vision
By Ts'ao Chih

In the Nine Province there is not room enough:
I want to soar high among the clouds,
And, far beyond the Eight Limits of the compass,
Cast my gaze across the unmeasured void.
I will wear as my gown the red mists of sunrise,
And as my skirt the white fringes of the clouds:
My canopy-the dim lustre of Space:
My chariot-six dragons mounting heavenward:
And before the light of Time has shifted a pace
Suddenly stand upon the World's blue rim.

The doors of Heaven swing open,
The double gates shine with a red light.
I roam and linger in the palace of W?n-ch'ang,(1)
I climb up to the hall of T'ai-wei.(1)
The Lord God lies at his western lattice:
And the lesser Spirits are together in the eastern gallery.
They wash me in a bath of rainbow-spray
And gird me with a belt of jasper and rubies.
I wander at my ease gathering divine herbs:
I bend down and touch the scented flowers.
Wng-tz?(2) gives me drugs of long life
And Hsien-m?n(2) hands me strange potions.
By the partaking of food I evade the rites of Death:
My span is extended to the enjoyment of life everlasting.

(1) Stars

(2) Immortals

More Chinese poems
Anonymous Writer
(First century B.C.)

The Orphan

To be an orphan,
To be fated to be an orphan,
How bitter is this lot!
When my father and mother were alive
I used to ride in a carriage
With four fine horses.
But when they both died,
My brother and sister-in-law
Sent me out to be a merchant.
In the south I traveled to the "Nine Rivers"
And in the east as far as Chi'i and Lu.
At the end of the year when I came home
I dared not tell them what I had suffered-
Of the lice and vermin in my head,
Of the dust in my face and eyes.
My brother told me to get ready the dinner,
My sister-in-law told me to see after the horses.
I was always going up into the hall
And running down again to the parlour.
My tears fell like rain.
In the morning they sent me to draw water,
I didn't get back till night-fall.
My hands were all sore
And I had no shoes.
I walked the cold earth
Treading on thorns and brambles.
As I stopped to pull out the thorns,
How bitter my heart was!
My tears fell and fell
And I went on sobbing and sobbing.
In winter I have no great-coat;
Nor in summer, thin clothes.
It is no pleasure to be alive.
I had rather quickly leave the earth
And go beneath the Yellow Springs.(1)
The April winds blow
And the grass is growing green.
In the third month-silkworms and mulberries,
In the sixth month-the melon-harvest.
I went out with the melon-cart
And just as I was coming home
The melon-cart turned over.
The people who came to help me were few,
But the people who ate the melons were many,
All they left me was stalks-
To take home as fast as I could.
My brother and sister-in-law were harsh,
They asked me all sorts of awful questions.
Why does everyone in the village hate me?
I want to write a letter and send it
To my mother and father under the earth,
And tell them I can't go on any longer
Living with my brother and sister-in-law.

(1) Hades

_____________________________________________

In the country of Yüeh when a man made friends with another they set up an altar of earth, and sacrificed upon it a dog and a cock, reciting this oath as they did so:

Oaths of Friendship

If you were riding in a coach
And I were wearing a "Li", (1)
And one day we met in the road,
You would get down and bow.
If you were carrying a "T?ng",(2)
And I were riding on a horse,
And one day we met in the road
I would get down for you.

Shang Ya!
I want to be your friend
For ever and ever without break or decay.
When the hills are all flat
When the rivers are all dry,
When it lightens and thunders in winter,
When it rains and snows in summer
When Heaven and Earth mingle-
Not until then will I part from you.


(1) A peasant's coat made of straw.

(2) An umbrella under which a cheap-jack sells his wares.

Thinking of this poem at dusk:


Richard Cory

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him;
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked,
But still he fluttered pulses when he said
"Good morning"--and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich--yes, richer than a king,
And admirably schooled in every grace;
In fact, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread,
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.

Edward Arlington Robinson.